Weiner: N.Y. Times should've been tougher

10/30/13 7:11 PM EDT

GQ's Marshall Sella has a deep dive into how The New York Times Magazine's glowing profile of Anthony Weiner back in April could have somehow missed the fact that Weiner continued sexting even after he resigned from Congress.

The former congressman told Sella he had hoped for tough treatment.

“The problem was that the story was completely different from what we thought would be written,” Weiner said. “I thought there’d be thousands of questions about the sexting. But there wasn’t a lot of conversation about that. We had a guy [profile author Jonathan Van Meter] who wasn’t tough enough. We needed someone to just tear away at me. And not someone who would do something sympathetic. ... He wrote an aftermath story, about two interesting people. Later, I thought, ‘We didn’t get this done. Of the hundred things we wanted to do, the one thing we wanted to accomplish was to get that out there!’”

Sella asked why Weiner didn't just bring up the post-scandal sexting himself during interviews for the profile.

“I should have!” Weiner said. “That’s on the list of the hundred mistakes you make in a campaign. I should’ve said, ‘Other things happened in the interim,’ to get that out there. That’s what I should have done!"

According to Sella, Van Meter is furious to be dismissed as "not tough enough" and that he was specifically chosen for the profile because Abedin liked Van Meter after spending time with him when he profiled Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

"In that experience, I spent a lot of time around Huma — and she said to Anthony that if Jonathan Van Meter does it, that is the kind of writer I’m comfortable talking to,” he said. “I was chosen. They knew exactly what kind of story and what kind of writer they were going to get."

Sella reports it never struck Van Meter — or anyone at the Times — to ask if Weiner had continued sexting because "Van Meter intended not to write about sexting but about how this well-known couple had endured the hot lights of a full-out political scandal."

Van Meter admits he was personally struck by the revelations that Weiner continued sexting and doesn't claim his reporting was perfect.

“It was instantly clear that what had once been considered by so many people a triumph of access in journalism had now turned to shit,” he said. “I was really bummed out.”

Van Meter has a warning for any reporter thinking of profiling Weiner in the future: Don't.

"No one should interview Anthony again. He is the least reliable narrator of his own story that I have ever encountered," Van Meter said. "And I’ve interviewed people in prison, who have chopped people up — prisoners who are charming and funny and smart. And well-dressed."